Minding Frankie - Maeve Binchy [85]
I truly hope that we will meet.
Until then …
Des Raven
Clara put the letter down and looked over at Frank. His eyes were too bright and there was a tear on his face. She got up and went across to him with her arms out.
“Isn’t this wonderful, Frank!” she cried. “You’ve got a son! Isn’t that the best news in the world?”
“Well, yes, but we’ve got to be cautious,” Frank began.
“What do we have to be cautious about? There was a woman called Rita Raven, wasn’t there?”
“Yes, but …”
“And she disappeared off the scene?”
“She went to some cousins in the U.S.A.,” he said.
“Or to some non-cousins in Australia …,” Clara corrected him.
“But it will all have to be checked out …,” he began to bluster.
She deliberately misunderstood him. “Of course the airlines and everything, but let him do that, Frank—the young are much better at getting flights online than we are. The main thing is what time is it in Australia? You can ring him straightaway.” She busied herself removing the plastic wrap from the smoked salmon.
He hadn’t moved. He couldn’t bring himself to tell her he had had the letter for two weeks and hadn’t been able to decide what to do.
“Come on, Frank, it’s surely morning there and if you leave it any longer he’ll have gone out to school. Call him now, will you?”
“But we’ll have to talk about it?”
“Like what do we have to talk about?”
“But don’t you mind?”
“Mind, Frank? I’m delighted. The only thing I mind is you, after all these years, having to talk to an answering machine.”
He looked at her, bewildered. There were so many things that he would never understand.
“How was Frank last night?” Hilary asked Clara the next day at the clinic. Only Hilary was ever given any information, and she was the only one who dared to ask.
“Amazing,” Clara said and left it there.
“And did you enjoy the opera?” Hilary persisted.
“We didn’t go. He arranged a catered meal in his apartment.”
“My God, this sounds serious!” Hilary was delighted. She always said that they were made for each other. Something Clara continued to deny.
“Frank is as he always was and always will be: cautious and watchful, never spontaneous. Stop trying to matchmake, will you, Hilary?”
Frank had dithered so long last night that the telephone rang unanswered in Des Raven’s home on the other side of the world. Frank had managed to miss talking to the son he hadn’t known he had, just because he was anxious to talk it over and check it out. All this had led to nothing, but Clara told none of this to Hilary. It was still Frank’s secret. She wasn’t going to blurt it out.
“Where is Moira? Today’s one of her days, isn’t it?”
“She’s just taken Kitty Reilly on a tour of residential homes. She has a checklist as long as her arm about what Kitty needs—you know, easy access to church, vegetarian food … that sort of thing.” Hilary sounded half impressed, half annoyed.
“She’s very thorough, I’ll say that for her,” Clara said grudgingly.
“I know what you mean. If she smiled more, maybe?” Hilary wondered. “Anyway, Linda rang you earlier. You were with somebody, so I took the call.”
Hilary’s son was married to Clara’s daughter. The two women had schemed to introduce their children to each other and it had worked spectacularly well. Apart from not producing a grandchild. Despite a lot of intervention, there was no success. Both her son, Nick, and Clara’s Linda were very despondent.
“She said no luck again.”
“If she’s so het up, she will never conceive. She has a list of three dozen people she phones every month. You, me and about thirty more.”
“Clara!” Hilary was shocked. “She’s your daughter and she thinks you are as excited as she is at the thought of you becoming a granny, and of me becoming one at the same time!”
“You’re right—I’d forgotten. Pass me the phone.” Hilary watched as Clara soothed Linda and patted her down.
Linda was obviously crying at the other end. Hilary moved away. She would have loved Nick and Linda to have given them good news. She could hear Clara saying, “Of course you